


A Moment of Truth

by TheAutumnLeaves



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Bonding, Destruction of Alderaan, Fluff, Friendship, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Leia's perpective, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 17:42:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21530782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAutumnLeaves/pseuds/TheAutumnLeaves
Summary: The first time Leia sits with the farm boy, she feels safe in his arms, and trusts him with all her heart and soul. Although it will be years before she truly understands why in the wake of the loss of her family, she's glad to take the comfort.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker & Han Solo
Kudos: 38





	A Moment of Truth

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a quick one shot I've tossed together, I literally haven't proofread it, plz don't eat me.

Luke found Leia after the ceremony, sitting in a dark crevice of the ancient structure, her hair dishevelled, and face covered in tears. She wanted to hate him for it. To be angry. But the best she could manage was to disregard the tears, and steady her voice.

“Shouldn’t you be at the party?”

He shrugged, looking uneasy in the clothes he had borrowed from Han, and slipped into the shadow with her, sitting down as well.

“It doesn’t really feel like a time to be celebrating.”

“Of course, it is!” she said fiercely, stubbornly ignoring the tears still wet on her lashes. “You’re a hero! You destroyed the Death Star!”

She tried not to think of how the medal she had placed around his neck was a symbol of the allegiance that had lost her her father.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it was a good day. I mean… the Death Star existed.”

There was something else in his eyes, but she couldn’t identify it, and she let her composure go, carefully wiping away her tears, smudges of makeup coming off onto her hands.

“It did,” she admitted.

He sat at a respectful distance, looking at her anxiously for a moment, before scooting a little closer. “Do you…. Should I hug you?”

She considered for a moment, before sliding over towards him, and burying herself in unfamiliar arms.

“What do we _do_ now?” he asked, his voice faltering as he squeezed her tightly. “Is this… is this what being in the Rebellion _is?”_

“Not usually,” she croaked, pressing her fists into his shoulders, glad to have someone’s arms around her.

She remembered an ex-boyfriend, who had been on Alderaan, holding her close on cold winter nights, cuddled up by the fireside, and felt the tears overwhelm her again. The memory of his sweater, so different from Luke’s rough tunic, but the care with which he had held her… all too similar.

“There are good times,” she promised, afraid that he would vanish as surely as all her Alderaanian friends had, unless she kept him close by her side. “I’m… I’m sorry I dragged you into all this.”

He shook his head, and she permitted herself to be rearranged against him, nestled in a more permanent position.

“It’s what I thought I wanted.”

“Is it still?” she asked weakly.

“Not like this.”

She felt his cheek in her hair, safely folding her away from the galaxy.

“But I’m not going anywhere.”

She smiled in heartbroken relief, clinging to him all the tighter. She felt like she was holding her own determined anger, her own resolve to fight back against the people who had destroyed her family. The thought was not entirely comforting.

“It’s not too late,” she said, unable to want him to release her, and escape. “You could still… this could be as much as the Empire touches your life.”

“I wouldn’t do that to my aunt,” he said.

She drew back from his arms, looking up at him.

He met her eyes with a quiet sorrow, very unlike how he had been at the Death Star, dragging her along by the hand.

“The Empire killed her. And my uncle. Before I came with Ben.”

She sighed, feeling the tremor leave her breath.

She had no time to cry.

She had wept for her father, her mother, her friends and extended family, the people she had sworn herself to serve.

“Let’s walk.”

She pulled herself from his arms and stood, offering him her hand.

He looked up at her in surprise. “Really? I thought you -,”

“No,” she said firmly, grabbing his hand and yanking him to his feet. “I need to walk, now.”

He followed her uncertainly, hovering a bit behind her, until she hauled his arm around herself, and led him out into the jungle.

“We’ve been based here a few months,” she told him, picking her way over the same familiar ground she had walked with her father, mere weeks before. “Father thought it was beautiful. I think it reminded him of home.”

She didn’t say that she had been unable to see the similarities.

She wished, now, that she had asked, but at the time, she had only rolled her eyes at her father’s strange leap of logic.

“Where’ve you been before?” he asked, and Leia suspected that he was as relieved to leave the vulnerable moments in the nook behind as she was.

For hours, they walked through the jungle, Luke slowly releasing her as he assured himself that she was safe. Twice more, she found herself crying, and he would hold her, and rock her, slowly pivoting on his heels.

Still, the soft, humid air helped wash away the tears, and by the time she found herself crying over a rock where she and her father had sat and eaten a picnic all-too-recently, Luke had punched her lightly, and told her to stop being such a baby, although there had been tears in his eyes.

By late afternoon, Luke had kicked off his boots, and splashed out into a lake, and Leia finally managed to release the last of her mourning to the orange sky, and throw hers aside as well.

They returned late into the night, damp and unkempt, and it was Han who met them at the doors of the base, desperately trying to pretend he hadn’t been worried.

And, that night, the three of them piled into one bed, and Leia fell safely asleep, surrounded by friends.


End file.
